Engineering Marvels

” Some of you might be asking: “Why would anyone come up with something so huge?” Well consider this. It takes a team of divers several months to cut apart a downed oil platform, lift it up to the surface piece-by-piece, and transport to land. VB 10000 can to the same task in just a few hours and for a quarter of the price. ”

” Salvaging a downed oil platform takes months, as a team of divers cuts apart the rig and a derrick hauls each piece to the surface. The VB10000 can remove an entire rig in a few hours, for a quarter of the price. Last fall, Versabar’s $100-million monster completed its first lift off the coast of Louisiana.

Divers connected hooks to the platform trusses, cut the platform legs away, and four hoists picked the whole thing up. About as wide as a football field and as tall as a 25-story building, the VB10000 is desperately needed—U.S. regulators have identified 1,800 rigs that must be removed within 10 years.

Read more about the Versabar and the company’s founder, Jon Khachaturian, in our profile. “